U.S. Pat. No. 4,804,804 entitled "Thermally Efficient Power Busway Housing" describes a plurality of planar copper or aluminum bus bars insulated from each other by means of an epoxy coating and bolted together to promote transfer of heat from inside the bus bars to the outside of the housing. One embodiment includes the use of a channeled bolt to promote the flow of air through the interior of the bus bars and thereby increase their ampacity without a corresponding increase in heat. When such bus bars are subjected to high ampere loadings, however, the magnetic repulsion forces generated between the individual bus bars require the use of larger bolts to resist distortion of the bus bars while maintaining the size of the air passage channel and accordingly increases the overall cost of the busway system.
In industrial installations, where the bus bars are often arranged in the horizontal plane, the ambient air becomes trapped under the bus bars to thereby increase the operating temperature of the bus bars several degrees Celsius above ambient.
One purpose of the instant invention is to provide a thermally efficient power busway system having improved thermal properties to thereby allow the bus bars to be mounted in either the horizontal or vertical plane without adding to the overall cost of the busway system.